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Posted Monday, March 5, 2012

handcuffsCan the United States arrest Aristide, in fact, in Haiti?

By Yves A. Isidor

DARTMOUTH, MA - Mar. 5 - The United States and Haiti have a unilateral agreement that permits the former nation's authorities to enter the minuscule Caribbean corner as it wishes, whenever it expresses a desire to do so and arrest (regardless of  their government functions, if any - past or present) Haitian citizens indicted by its court of law for a series of crimes, such as drug trafficking and money laundering, even when they are committed, in part, on American soil.

robert antoine 1

ON HIS WAY TO A U.S JAIL., FROM HAITI Robert Antoine, 61, a deposed murderous dictator Aristide alleged partner in grand-scale public corruption, in U.S. tight handcuffs.  More Images

The agreement of concern was first debated in great secrecy, the contents of it kept confidential by the Caribbean nation's 44th legislature. Immediately thereafter, then President Rene Preval (7 February 1996-7 February 2001), who before he himself became head of state was twice president, twice deposed, twice exiled Mr. Jean-Bertrand Aristide's prime minister, a die-hard senior member of his Lavalas (literally, flood) political party's politburo, affixed his signature at the bottom of it.

The day when Mr. Preval proudly used his pen was an October 17 of the year1997. This very particular day, millions of Haitians, until today, continue to painfully say, was the same exact day they were - as was customary, since 25 years or so after 1806 -  commemorating the historically tortured small Caribbean land's first self-declared emperor for life Jean-Jacques Dessalines' assassination.

dessalines

Above, a Dessalines statue On Jan. 1, 1804, Dessalines proclaimed Haitian independence at Gonaïves. Unfortunately for Haiti, Dessalines's qualities of personal courage were not matched by desperately needed tolerance, statesmanship, and magnanimity. He had himself named governor general for life, with the right to choose a successor, following this by crowning himself Emperor Jean Jacques I, but without creating a nobility. In his own words: "Moi seul, je suis noble" (Only I am noble).

Why not the year that followed Dessalines' assassination but 25 years later? Because he was so hated by the ruling political classes that came after him, according to many historians, average citizens were afraid to even attempt to remember him in the comfort of their private residences.

Ironically, months later one of the first victims of the said agreement was Florel Celestin (first, a medical doctor by training; a former Haitian army captain) who then was Haiti's senate president. He served a long prison sentence for trafficking in narcotics, with the U.S. as the ultimate market for his unlawful goods, after he was first indicted by a Miami federal grand jury, then arrested in Haiti by U.S. authorities and ultimately found himself in the dock, where verdict of culpability was returned against him after a trial by jury.   

Many longtime foreign observers of Haitian politics, Haitians of culture, both in Haiti and the diaspora communities, explain the former leftist, firebrand president today's predicament with an analogy. Mr. Aristide, his indictment for grand-scale corruption is like doctors have finally quarantined the carrier of a very contagious disease after infecting others or untold number of former alleged partners in crimes. One of them is flamboyant drug lord Jacques B. Ketant, the godfather of his second daughter, Michaelle Aristide. Mr. Ketant was placed in handcuffs by U.S. Marshals who were hiding at his Port-au-Prince's Tabarre suburb ultra-luxury private residence less than an hour after Mr. Aristide called him, urging the man who used to help his government pay public employees, aid his administration pay for the cost (economic) of Haiti's annual carnival festivities, to urgently come to see him to discuss some very important personal matters.  

The history of Haitians betraying Haitians is nothing new, they further explain. Everything concerning the very sad history of Haiti is there; also, just go to Wikipedia, they add. During the U.S. first occupation of Haiti (1915-1934) Marine Corps Herman Henry Hanneken assassinated resistance leader Charlemagne Peralte (a name Mr. Aristide built his political career on, one that untold number of people deeply believed caused him to shed tears when he was addressing, for example, a 10,000-strong crowd of grim-looking supporters; also during his fiery sermons and radio broadcasts), for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor. Mr. Peralte's sad end on the night of October 31-November 1, 1919 came after Mr. Hanneken was disguised and led into the rebels camp in Northern Haiti by Jean-Baptiste Conze, one of Péralte's officers who became the Haitian leader's Brutus. In the short skirmish that ensued, Hanneken killed Péralte and about 1,200 of his followers were killed, captured, or dispersed. Hanneken subsequently circulated a photograph of Péralte's half-naked body tied to a door.

Again, in retrospective what's more, but about those who would later become Haitians betraying one of their brothers. Francois-Dominique Toussaint Louverture was the precursor of Haiti's independence. On June 6, 1802, he was arrested by French colony of then Saint-Dominique authorities and immediately thereafter expelled to France after he was betrayed by his immediate aides. He died on April 7, 1803 in the mountainous ice prison of Fort de Jous (also Chateau de Jous) - a formidable stone fortress at the top of a dauntingly steep hill of rocks that lied at the foot of the Jura mountains.

"History," famously said Voltaire, "is a tableau of crimes." Sadly, this is exactly what Haitian history has been, and unfortunately, will always be, unless there is some type of divine intervention, which the author doubts will ever happen.

The writer, Yves A. Isidor, who teaches economics at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, is executive editor of Wehaitians.com.


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*Note: Information from Wikipedia was used in the preparation of this text.


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